Botanically speaking, seeds are small embryonic plants--the whole plant stuffed into a tiny seed and surrounded by an outer layer packed with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals to protect the seedling plant's DNA from free radicals. No wonder they're so healthy. By seeds, using the formal definition, we're talking all whole grains; grains are seeds--you plant them and they grow. Nuts are just dry fruits with one or two seeds. Legumes (beans, peas, and lentils) are seeds, too, as are cocoa and coffee beans. So, finding health-promoting effects in something like cocoa or coffee should not be all that surprising. There is substantial evidence that increased consumption of all these little plants is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Of course, much of chocolate research is just on how to get consumers to eat more. While it didn't seem to matter what kind of music people were listening to when it came to the flavor intensity, pleasantness, or texture of a bell pepper, people liked chocolate more when listening to jazz than classical, rock, or hip hop. Why is this important? So food industries can "integrate specific musical stimuli" in order to maximize their profits. For example, purveyors may play jazz in the background to increase consumers' acceptance of their chocolates. Along these lines, another study demonstrated that people rated the oyster eaten "more pleasant in the presence of the 'sound of the sea' than in the presence of 'farmyard noises.'"

You'd think chocolate would just sell itself, given that it's considered the most commonly craved food in the world. The same degree of interest doesn't seem to exist as to whether or not Brussels sprouts might provide similar cardiovascular protection. So, it's understandable to hope chocolate provides health benefits. Meanwhile, despite their known benefits, Brussels sprouts don't get the love they deserve.

One of the potential downsides of chocolate is weight gain, which is the subject of my Does Chocolate Cause Weight Gain? video. Though cocoa hardly has any calories, chocolate is one of the most calorie-dense foods. For example: A hundred calories of chocolate is less than a quarter of a bar, compared to a hundred calories of strawberries, which is more than two cups..

A few years ago, a study funded by the National Confectioners Association--an organization that, among other things, runs the website voteforcandy.com--reported that Americans who eat chocolate weigh, on average, four pounds less than those who don't. But maybe chocolate-eaters exercise more or eat more fruits and vegetables. The researchers didn't control for any of that.

The findings of a more recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine were less easy to dismiss and there were no apparent ties to Big Chocolate. The researchers reported that out of a thousand men and women they studied in San Diego, those who frequently consumed chocolate had a lower BMI--actually weighed less--than those who ate chocolate less often. And this was even after adjusting for physical activity and diet quality. But, it was a cross-sectional study, meaning a snapshot in time, so you can't prove cause and effect. Maybe not eating chocolate leads to being fatter, or maybe being fatter leads to not eating chocolate. Maybe people who are overweight are trying to cut down on sweets. What we need is a study in which people are followed over time.

There was no such prospective study, until now. More than 10,000 people were followed for six years, and a chocolate habit was associated with long-term weight gain in a dose-response manner. This means the greatest weight gain over time was seen in those with the highest frequency of chocolate intake. It appears the reason the cross-sectional studies found the opposite is that subjects diagnosed with obesity-related illnesses tended to reduce their intake of things like chocolate in an attempt to improve their prognosis. This explains why heavier people may, on average, eat less chocolate.

To bolster this finding came the strongest type of evidence--an interventional trial--in which you split people up into two groups and change half their diets. Indeed, adding four squares of chocolate to peoples' daily diets does appear to add a few pounds.

So, what do we tell our patients? In 2013, researchers wrote in the American Family Physician journal that "because many cocoa products are high in sugar and saturated fat, family physicians should refrain from recommending cocoa...." That's a little patronizing, though. You can get the benefits of chocolate without any sugar or fat by adding cocoa powder to a smoothie, for example. Too often, doctors think patients can't handle the truth. Case in point: If your patients inquire, one medical journal editorial suggest, ask them what type of chocolate they prefer. If they respond with milk chocolate, then it is best to answer that it is not good for them. If the answer is dark chocolate, then you can lay out the evidence.

Botanically speaking, seeds are small embryonic plants--the whole plant stuffed into a tiny seed and surrounded by an outer layer packed with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals to protect the seedling plant's DNA from free radicals. No wonder they're so healthy. By seeds, using the formal definition, we're talking all whole grains; grains are seeds--you plant them and they grow. Nuts are just dry fruits with one or two seeds. Legumes (beans, peas, and lentils) are seeds, too, as are cocoa and coffee beans. So, finding health-promoting effects in something like cocoa or coffee should not be all that surprising. There is substantial evidence that increased consumption of all these little plants is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Of course, much of chocolate research is just on how to get consumers to eat more. While it didn't seem to matter what kind of music people were listening to when it came to the flavor intensity, pleasantness, or texture of a bell pepper, people liked chocolate more when listening to jazz than classical, rock, or hip hop. Why is this important? So food industries can "integrate specific musical stimuli" in order to maximize their profits. For example, purveyors may play jazz in the background to increase consumers' acceptance of their chocolates. Along these lines, another study demonstrated that people rated the oyster eaten "more pleasant in the presence of the 'sound of the sea' than in the presence of 'farmyard noises.'"

You'd think chocolate would just sell itself, given that it's considered the most commonly craved food in the world. The same degree of interest doesn't seem to exist as to whether or not Brussels sprouts might provide similar cardiovascular protection. So, it's understandable to hope chocolate provides health benefits. Meanwhile, despite their known benefits, Brussels sprouts don't get the love they deserve.

One of the potential downsides of chocolate is weight gain, which is the subject of my Does Chocolate Cause Weight Gain? video. Though cocoa hardly has any calories, chocolate is one of the most calorie-dense foods. For example: A hundred calories of chocolate is less than a quarter of a bar, compared to a hundred calories of strawberries, which is more than two cups..

A few years ago, a study funded by the National Confectioners Association--an organization that, among other things, runs the website voteforcandy.com--reported that Americans who eat chocolate weigh, on average, four pounds less than those who don't. But maybe chocolate-eaters exercise more or eat more fruits and vegetables. The researchers didn't control for any of that.

The findings of a more recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine were less easy to dismiss and there were no apparent ties to Big Chocolate. The researchers reported that out of a thousand men and women they studied in San Diego, those who frequently consumed chocolate had a lower BMI--actually weighed less--than those who ate chocolate less often. And this was even after adjusting for physical activity and diet quality. But, it was a cross-sectional study, meaning a snapshot in time, so you can't prove cause and effect. Maybe not eating chocolate leads to being fatter, or maybe being fatter leads to not eating chocolate. Maybe people who are overweight are trying to cut down on sweets. What we need is a study in which people are followed over time.

There was no such prospective study, until now. More than 10,000 people were followed for six years, and a chocolate habit was associated with long-term weight gain in a dose-response manner. This means the greatest weight gain over time was seen in those with the highest frequency of chocolate intake. It appears the reason the cross-sectional studies found the opposite is that subjects diagnosed with obesity-related illnesses tended to reduce their intake of things like chocolate in an attempt to improve their prognosis. This explains why heavier people may, on average, eat less chocolate.

To bolster this finding came the strongest type of evidence--an interventional trial--in which you split people up into two groups and change half their diets. Indeed, adding four squares of chocolate to peoples' daily diets does appear to add a few pounds.

So, what do we tell our patients? In 2013, researchers wrote in the American Family Physician journal that "because many cocoa products are high in sugar and saturated fat, family physicians should refrain from recommending cocoa...." That's a little patronizing, though. You can get the benefits of chocolate without any sugar or fat by adding cocoa powder to a smoothie, for example. Too often, doctors think patients can't handle the truth. Case in point: If your patients inquire, one medical journal editorial suggest, ask them what type of chocolate they prefer. If they respond with milk chocolate, then it is best to answer that it is not good for them. If the answer is dark chocolate, then you can lay out the evidence.

Just like mosquitos are the vectors of spread for malaria, a landmark article published last year in one of the most prestigious medical journals, Lancet,described large food corporations as the vectors of spread for chronic disease. Unlike "infectious disease epidemics, however, these corporate disease vectors implement sophisticated campaigns to undermine public health interventions." Most mosquitoes don't have as good PR firms.

A key message was that "alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink industries use similar strategies as the tobacco industry to undermine effective public health policies and programs." What they mean by ultra-processed is things like burgers, frozen meals, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, potato chips, doughnuts and soda pop.

But how is the food industry like the tobacco industry? The "first strategy is to bias research findings." For example, Philip Morris implemented the Whitecoat project to hire doctors to publish ghost-written studies purporting to negate links between secondhand smoke and harm, publishing biased cherry-picked scientific reports to deny harm and suppress health information. In my video Food Industry-Funded Research Bias, you can see the actual industry memo describing the Whitecoat Project, designed to reverse the scientific "misconception" that secondhand smoke is harmful.

Similarly, funding from these large food corporations biases research. Studies show systematic bias from industry funding, so we get the same kind of tactics--supplying misinformation, use of supposedly conflicting evidence and hiding negative data.

The same scientists-for-hire that downplayed the risks of secondhand smoke are the same hired by the likes of the National Confectioner's Association to say candy cigarettes are A-OK as well. Of course, they declared "no conflict of interest."

The similarities between strategies used by the tobacco, alcohol, and food and drink corporations are unsurprising in view of the flow of people, funds and activities across these industries, which also have histories of joint ownership--like Philip Morris owned both Kraft and Miller Brewing.

"The tobacco industry's strategy was embodied in a script written by the lawyers. Every tobacco company executive in the public eye was told to learn the script backwards and forwards, no deviation was allowed. The basic premise was simple-- smoking had not been proven to cause cancer. Not proven, not proven, not proven--this would be stated insistently and repeatedly. Inject a thin wedge of doubt, create controversy, never deviate from the prepared line. It was a simple plan and it worked."

Internal industry memos make this explicit, stating "doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the mind of the general public." The internal industry memos list objective number one as "to set aside in the minds of millions the false conviction that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases; a conviction based on fanatical assumptions, fallacious rumors, unsupported claims and the unscientific statements and conjectures of publicity-seeking opportunists... [We need] to lift the cigarette from the cancer identification as quickly as possible, and to establish--once and for all--that no scientific evidence has ever been produced, presented or submitted to prove conclusively that cigarette smoking causes cancer," similar to what's now coming out from the food industry, from the same folks that brought us smoke and candy.

This is part of a series of "political" blogs which includes my video, Collaboration with the New Vectors of Disease. Why don't I just "stick to the science"? When there are billions of dollars at stake, the body of evidence can be skewed and manipulated. Funders can determine which studies are performed, how they're performed and whether or not they get published at all. That's why I think it's important to take a broader view to account for the ways the scientific method can be perverted for profit.

Every year I scour the world's scholarly literature on clinical nutrition, pulling together what I find to be the most interesting, practical, and groundbreaking science on how to best feed ourselves and our families. I start with the thousands of papers published annually on nutrition (27,000 this year--a new record!) and, thanks to a crack team of volunteers (and now staff!), I'm able to whittle those down (to a mere 8,000 this year). They are then downloaded, categorized, read, analyzed, and churned into the few hundred short videos. This allows me to post new videos and articles every day, year-round, to NutritionFacts.org. This certainly makes the site unique. There's no other science-based source for free daily updates on the latest discoveries in nutrition. The problem is that the amount of information can be overwhelming.

Currently I have more than a thousand videos covering 1,931 nutrition topics. Where do you even begin? Many have expressed their appreciation for the breadth of material, but asked that I try to distill it into a coherent summary of how best to use diet to prevent and treat chronic disease. I took this feedback to heart and in 2012 developed Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death, which explored the role diet may play in preventing, arresting, and even reversing our top 15 killers. Not only did it rise to become one of the Top 10 Most Popular Videos of 2012, it remains my single most viewed video to date, watched over a million times (NutritionFacts.org is now up to more than 1.5 million hits a month!).

Every year I wonder how I'm going to top the year before. Knowing how popular these live presentations can be and hearing all the stories from folks about what a powerful impact they can have on people's lives, I put my all into this new 2015 one. I spent more time putting together this presentation than any other in my life. It took me an entire month, and when you see it I think you'll appreciate why.

This year, I'm honored to bring you Food as Medicine, in which I go through our most dreaded diseases--but that's not even the best part! I'm really proud of what I put together for the ending. I spend the last 20 minutes or so (starting at 56:22) going through a thought experiment that I'm hoping everyone will find compelling. I think it may be my best presentation ever. You be the judge.

You can watch it at no cost online, but it is also available on DVD through my website or on Amazon. If you want to share copies with others, I have a five for $40 special (enter coupon code 5FOR40FAM). All proceeds from the sales of all my books, DVDs, downloads, and presentations go to the 501c3 nonprofit charity that keeps NutritionFacts.org free for all, for all time. If you want to support this initiative to educate millions about eradicating dietary diseases, please consider making a donation.

This week I had the honor of speaking before the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which is responsible for making evidence-based recommendations on the next round of federal nutrition advice. Normally such meetings devolve into a platform for moneyed interests to lobby on behalf of their corporate clients, but if you watch the video, I think you'll be as surprised as I at the number of presenters pushing sane, healthy choices. For example, four out of the first five speakers promoted a plant-based diet. Kathy Freston closed out the morning session (min. 1:55:52) and actress Marilu Henner shares a heartfelt appeal at 2:23:10.

The entire video is worth watching if just for the political education value. Big Sugar and Big Meat were on hand. You (almost) feel bad for the representative from the National Confectioner's (candy) Association. A good sign was how defensive the industry lobbyists sounded, encapsulated in press releases such as "Keep Dairy in the American Diet, National Milk Producers Federation Urges."

The morning's highlight can be seen at 1:31:05. Dr. Mona Sigal had just gotten through condemning the USDA for their cheese-pushing scandal at the behest of the dairy lobby, decrying the inordinate role Big Dairy has played in manipulating the dietary guidelines. The audience broke out into laughter as the next speaker was introduced: Jill Nicholls from the National Dairy Council.

In the Permanente Journal last year, the official peer-reviewed publication of our nations largest managed care organization, a “Nutrition Update for Physicians” was published, which concluded that “Healthy eating maybe best achieved with a plant-based diet,” which they defined as a diet that encourages whole plant-based foods and discourages meat, dairy products, and eggs as well as empty calorie junk. To quote their conclusion: "Research shows that plant-based diets are cost-effective, low-risk interventions that may lower body mass index, blood pressure, HbA1C, and cholesterol levels. They may also reduce the number of medications needed to treat chronic diseases and lower ischemic heart disease mortality rates. Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients, especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity," which of course describes a bulk of our population.

This sentiment was echoed last summer by the American Institute for Cancer Research—probably the most preeminent institution on diet and cancer risk—when they explicitly endorsed a diet revolving around whole plant foods: vegetables, whole grains, fruits and beans.

I’ve personally been eating a plant-rich diet since 1990, when Dr. Dean Ornish published his Lifestyle Heart Trial in The Lancet, angiographically proving that heart disease could be reversed with the help of a plant-based diet, opening up arteries without drugs, without surgery. If that’s all a plant-based diet could do, reverse our number one killer of men and women, then shouldn’t that be our default dietary recommendation until proven otherwise? And the fact that plant-based diets can also be effective in preventing, treating, and arresting other leading killers, such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension, would seem to make the case for plant-based eating overwhelming.

Now to the last Guideline Committee’s great credit, the 2010 guidelines were a leap in the right direction, recognizing food as a package deal. Yes there’s calcium in dairy, protein in pork, iron in beef, but because of the baggage that comes along (like the saturated fat and cholesterol), plant sources are preferable, because then the “baggage’ we get is the fiber, the folate, the phytonutrients, etc.

I would like to see the committee be more explicit, though. When “eat-more” recommendations are issued, the messaging is clear—for example, “Increase vegetable and fruit intake.” But when there’s a conflict between USDA’s dual role to protect the public while at the same time promoting agricultural products, recommendations often resort to speaking in cryptic biochemical components, such as “Reduce intake of solid fats (major sources of saturated and trans fatty acids).” How about instead, eat less cheese. Or messages like drink less soda. Eat less meat, particularly processed meat. The American Institute for Cancer Research just comes out and says it: “Processed meat like bacon, sausage, and cold cuts should be avoided.” Period. They don’t need to sell food; they just want to prevent cancer.

I am not here today on behalf of the broccoli lobby (though I'd be honored to represent big broccoli). I am not here representing any financial interest. I am here as a physician, representing the interests of the hundreds of thousands of Americans that continue to suffer and die every year from chronic disease. And you can help them by recommending a more plant-based diet.

For those interested in my thoughts about the last round of federal dietary guidelines I've compiled them into a 14 part video series: